Wisconsin cash not in Minnesota budget

Wisconsin owes Minnesota $58 million, cash that might be a bit of help in Minnesota's $6.2 billion budget gap.

But, despite the Minnesota search for cash, Gov. Mark Dayton's proposed budget released this week didn't count on that money.

"We don't know when the money is coming in and it's not a proposal that the governor can really enact law that says: Wisconsin will pay us this money. It is money that the state of Wisconsin owes us. We are confident they will pay it to us. When we know when it is going to come in we will, in fact, recognize it. Hopefully we will know in time to put it in this forecast. if that's not the case, we will put it in the next forecast," said Minnesota Management and Budget commissioner Jim Schowalter.

In addition to the deficits facing these critically important areas of state government, bill collectors are waiting on the doorsteps of our capitol. Due to a past reliance on short term fixes, one-time money, delayed payments, and fund raids, we owe the State of Minnesota nearly 60 million dollars and we owe the Patient's Compensation fund for a past raid of $200 million.